Morning journal and courier., 1887-03-12
ANDERSONVILLE.

ever so old, they grow young again in that conversation and renew their own early time. Men not quite so generous.- Thackeray.
 ANDERs0NvILLE. A Description of the Prison Site as 1t Appears To-day.
 From the Chicago Times1 It will be remembered that the site of
 the prison was couple of side hills sloping
 gently down toward each other into g bog
 or swamp, through which ran 8 sluggish
 stream of water eight or ten feet wide and
 about six inches deep. When this spot
 was chosen for prison it was quite heavily
 timbered with pine trees. A space of about
 twenty acres in extent was cleared of and
 securely fenced in with the timber thus
 obtained, the timber being cut twenty-five feet long and buried five feet in the ground.
 The soil was light and sandy. Only two
 trees were left in the entire enclosure. No
 place could have been more inhospitable and
 cheerless. The swamp, in which a man
 would sink to the waist, occupied consider
 able portion of the field; the little stream
 was brackish and unpalatable; the absence of
 shade trees, which might have been left, made
 the pen almost like caldron under the burn
 ing southern sun.
 To-day the spot presents 8 somewhat
 pleasanter aspect. The side hills are now
 farmed, the swamp is not and will not be
 for years, until redeemed by more careful system of agriculture. After the prison was
 abandoned in April, 1865, the place grew up
 with second growth timber, but this has been almost entirely cleared away, and in it's place in the proper season are found the staple products of Georgia husbandry. The great, towering stockade has almost entirely dis appeared; it is only here and there that single post or little group of posts is to be seen. These have not routed away, but
 have been wisely split up into rails to fence off the farm land. Their purpose is not now to keep in prisoners, but to keep out in- truders.
 Still, though the heavy, spiked timbers
 have been removed, the three lines of stockade can be distinctly traced; they are likely to be discernible for years to come. The strong earthworks that the Confederate soldiers threw up are still
 there, hard and firm; and the rife pits
 used by them are still traceable though twen-
 ty-three years have elapsed since they were
 dug.
 The sluggish little stream, the Branch
 as the prisoners called it, still takes it's way
 across what was the old inclosure, about third of the way from the southern boundary of the stockade. It is to day much as it was
 
 with rank, oozy ground, still 1niasmal and disagreeable, but, of course shorn of the fetid, excremental stencil or war times. This was the general sink of the prison, and it's stench could then be detected mile and half away.
 Those familiar with the history of Ander- sonyille will remember the little spring, Providence spring" it was called, because it was godsend to the prisoners, that broke forth on the 18th or 18th of August, 1864, between the 'dead line" and the stockade, not far from the north gate. Prev ious to this time the prisoners got water from the Branch" or general sink. When this spring broke out, however, Capt. Wirz considerably allowed them to sink bsrrel and conduct the water within the ''dead Ilne," and here the prisoners would stand | in line by the hundreds, awaiting their tu1 | to get drink of fresh water. It was the | one great blessing of the pen and it has nev- | CT ceased to flow. Its waters bubble fo1 5h ! to day as fresh and sparkling as il those | times of suffering. The appearance of the spring of course js changed. Twenty years | of ceaseless flowing has worked it back lit | tie higher up the hill, since the old barrsl which the prisoners sunk soon disappeared after the prison was abandoned. It is now | some twenty feet from the perceptible out | line of the stockade. For a time it was pro tected by large pine stump, but it is now surrounded by neat wood curbing about | two and half feet high, with semi cir | cular opening on the lower side, through | which the water constantly flows. Before the spring broke forth the prison ! CTS endesvored to find flesh water by sink | ing wells in the hilsides, but to no avail. | Many such excavations were made. some of them forty or fifty feet deep. Several of these are still to be seen almost es perfect as when the prisoners dug them. They are all dIy, since whatever water runs into them from the surface is rapidly absorbed by the sandy soil. They are a constant source of danger, yet the careless husbandry of the South does not fill them up. Of course the 'dead line," 8 low fence eight cen feet from the stockade, made by mailing | four-inch strip of board on low posts about | twenty feet apart, has wholly disappeared
 Not the slightest tracs is left of it. since it was lightly constructed.
 Though more than twenty years have l passed, the bu1 rows or dugouts of the prison CTS are still discernible. It is strange what grotesque humor will crop out in the midst of suffering. It seems though there is 8 law by which humor asserts itself as pro- | test against despair from the very depths of | a suffering heart These dugouts-mere ! kennels-were the boys 'brown stone fronts" The hillsides, especially on the north slope, are in places deeply corrugated 1 Great washouts are to be seen where the prisoners burrows have caved in. It will take a long time for the influences of weather ! and shiftless farming to obliterate them Here and there also is to be seen a narrow | long depression in the ground leading to- ward the stockade. These are caused by the falling in of the earth over the prisoners l tunnels, which were excavated with view tc escape. And escape some three hundred and | fifty of the men did. Periodically the Con- l federates would drive heavily loaded wag- on over the space between the stockade and | the dead line with view to breaking in the | soil and discovering the tunnels. Besides
 this they probed the ground with sharp spikes for the same purpose. These little | lines of indenture there Are eloquent with | the hopes and efforts that too often were un- availing.
 Relics of prison life are constantly being exhumed-bits of pots and kettles, knives, spoons, canteen covers and the like. These are mostly found on the sandy slopes of the hills, since the soil of the marsh has scarcely | been disturbed. Upon the whole the place | has the air of a peaceful rural district. One 1 would readily see that it has been the scene of war operations. But there is nothing to I suggest the horrors of thirteen months of prison experience except to one who eau rightly read and interpret the little signs we | have pointed out above.
 I